Tag: Lupus

Posted in Friesland Farm

Is Spring ever going to arrive 🤷‍♀️

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 10th April 2023: Bank holiday Monday and it’s raining what a surprise 😂 can’t really complain though we have had some nice weather and at least the tanks are collecting rainwater for the animals and the garden.

A comment has made me think a lot about the British flower revival and availability. Let me say first that I initially spent six months researching British grown flowers how/what/when and have learnt a lot more during the last year as well. I am also aware that some in the floristry industry might feel threatened by the success of British flowers but there is no need. Firstly there is room for everyone and secondly the British flowers revival is not driven by a ‘them and us’ attitude, from everything I read and people I interact with it is driven by caring for the planet and a love of flowers and yes there is also a business to be made but everyone has to earn a living somehow. So if you are a florist reading this hello 👋 it’s good to have you here and working together great things can be achieved to lessen the impact on our planet. There is a fabulous independent florist called Winnie & Olive who only sell British flowers and foliage, 100% all year round so it is doable 🥰 The British flower wholesalers have reported a huge increase in sales this year already, a sure sign that more and more florists are getting onboard. I’d agree that it is difficult for someone who has always done things one particular way to change but give yourself the freedom to do so and see where it takes you. It is just about relearning and there are plenty of people out there willing to give advice, social media is awash with information, oh and if you want to go floral foam free there is plenty of information in that department too, including a growing army of church flower arrangers 🥰

We got plenty done today and made good progress with the flower room. I spent some time in the greenhouse and John some time doing something, not sure what 😂 but just before midday he said we were ready to go and get flooring so off we went to the DIY shop and bought flooring whoop. Quick pit stop for a bite to eat and coffee before returning home and laying the flooring. We were three quarters of a way through and late into the day when we ran out of underlay 😜 A quick ask round and my brother had some in his garage so we went over there to collect it along with a large table base that we will be using for the main work area. Obviously we stopped for a cuppa and a natter and returned home and unloaded by which time it was 9pm and time for a sit down before bed. Oh yes it was very flipping windy today, gusts of up to 40mph 🙄

Tuesday: The weather started off ok this morning a touch cold maybe but dry, I got some washing on the line and then a second lot in the machine, did some hoovering and tidying bits away and put the second lot of washing on the line. Then I spent some time making up an arrangement I had seen online, I wanted to see how well it worked in reality, I changed it a little but the mechanics work well. Lunchtime and I sat down with a cuppa and some toast and then the heavens opened full pelt 🙄 I ran outside and collected the washing as quickly as I could but I still got pretty wet ☹️ and it was cold to boot 🥶 Shelley called in with Josh and Flo for a cuppa and a catch up and then John arrived home just as they were about to go, seems like the day went really quickly.

Wednesday: It’s 8am and I am annoyed already 😂 I got up, the sun was out though it’s cold, I looked at the weather app 0% chance of rain until 10am then rain and high winds. So I get everything done, rubbish out, feed the animals, breakfast, sort out flower buckets, put the eggs out not necessarily in that order but you get my drift. I am ready by 7.55 to go out and cut flowers, I go for a wee quickly and I can hear rain on the roof! 😡 that was not supposed to arrive for another couple of hours 😝 I know it April and it’s shower month but seriously the rain yesterday was awful, the high winds the day before were awful and we have at least today and tomorrow with the same wall to wall forecast 🙄 After that John tells me it is going up to 21 degrees, give me a break, I would like some normal settle weather please if the universe is listening ☺️ The plan was to cut tulips, narcissi and anything else that looks ready, if I cut it this morning then the weather can do it’s worst because I will be doing jobs inside while the storm is raging outside.

Well it’s 10am and the sun is shining 😂 bloody weather apps! When there was a break (or what I thought would be a break) in the rain I dashed out and cut tulips, dicentra and narcissi plus some foliage ready for the flowers on Friday. They will have a good 24 hours conditioning and time to dry out slowly, if I left it until tomorrow and it rains all day that would be more difficult so it is a case do it when you feel it is right. I have also spent some time on the phone (waiting 🙄) to finalise some details of our up coming holiday 🥰

The wind picked up a bit 🙄 blowing a hoolie lol. I sorted out some lamb feeding bits that we will no longer be using and put those up for sale, I had to give them a wash down first as they have been stored for a good few years. Next job was to put back together a bookcase my sister was getting rid of, it is for the workshop and I haven’t decided yet if it will have books on it or baskets for keeping things in.

Thursday: The weather is good enough for me today, dry and intermittent cloud 😁 it was a busy morning. After all the usual jobs the next thing was to sort out the flowers I cut yesterday, also sort some I still had waiting to hang for drying. Once that was done it was outside to cut rhubarb and take that down to the pub, it was a pleasant walk down and back again. When I got back Dave arrived with some more honey and we had a chat about a few things that we will probably be doing in a couple of months time. Introduction to bee keeping workshops and as time goes on maybe even full courses plus we talked about charcoal making and possible workshops for that as well, ooo it’s all going on 🥰 In-between all that it was answering messages about flower bunches and bouquets, looks like it will be a good week. The flowers here are really getting going now, the tulips are coming up beautifully as are the narcissus, following closely behind are the allium and everything is beginning to burst into leaf (still a couple of things I am waiting to see if they survived) I did sow some seeds on a trial basis, the trial being to see if they actually come up before sowing more 🙄

I also ordered some spring bulbs today! Yep I have got my order in already otherwise if you leave it too late you can’t get what you actually want. I couldn’t get my head around using bulbs in cut flowers because the bulbs get discarded, the reason for that is because once the flower is cut there is no way to make energy to send back down to the bulb so it won’t flower the following year. You can cut the stem and leave some foliage behind and although it might flower the following year it will be a smaller flower with shorter stem. My plan though is not to compost all the bulbs but to leave them somewhere for a couple of years and see what they do. I have an area in the garden that is suitable under a sycamore tree and have already begun to ‘dump’ bulbs there. One of two things will happen, firstly absolutely nothing and they will either rot away or get eaten or secondly I might end up with an area full of flowers 🤷‍♀️ While I was online and as John came home we discussed what we needed to make the top of the table and the work surfaces (unbanded, new scaffold boards) and ordered that as well. I feel like to today has been a productive day and I still have flowers to make up this evening 🥰

Friday: Fridays are always a bit frantic lol, lots of messages back and forth, flower collections and social media to keep an eye on. Then there is the record keeping of what, when, where, who for, I had deliveries arriving today mostly for farm activities and kitting out the flower hut (that’s what I am going to call it) I also tend to spend Fridays working out any future workshops, planting, and doing relevant posts, it can be quite exhausting and sometimes I don’t know if I am coming or going 😂 but it is all enjoyable.

John has mostly been home today doing the last few bits to the inside of the flower hut, I can then move everything in there and start using the space to create, once the wood arrives for the table top that is 🥰

Saturday: It is Charlottes birthday today and also one of my sisters, we worked all day up to the point where it was time to go out and visit birthday people. Most of the work was on the flower hut, we had put some doors in and then decided that they were not a great fit and so took them out and put some different ones in. Both lots were bought second hand from the same person so apart from time the cost was nothing. We popped into my sisters then went up to Charlottes for paella and cake plus watch the grand national while we were there. It’s a shame about the protestors, I would always say that if you have ever worked with horses then half a ton of horse cannot be made to move if it doesn’t want to let alone run. The horses are bred for running and looked after far better than a lot of people are, holding up the race is not good for the horses themselves as they are full of adrenaline at that point and waiting to get going.

Sunday: Another day another birthday so we will be out again later today. Meanwhile we are busy getting as much done as we can, me in the garden, potting up plants, taking cuttings, planting plants into the ground and John working on the outside of the flower hut. There was metal profile sheeting on the outside but the powder coating had deteriorated over the years so it has been taken off and will be replaced with rough feather edge boarding which should look nice.

While we were out late afternoon John asked if I’d let the pony out today, no why, oh it was out in the field earlier, um maybe you should have told me when we were there 🙄 On our return I went out to the field to find her chomping away on the nice grass, somehow the electric clip had come off the fence. It was probably during the windy weather as a bucket that I used to cover the extension lead had rolled off catching the clip I imagine. She is pretty good so it would have taken her a couple of days to pluck up courage to get out and she was definitely still in there this morning lol.

That is another week done, I have done a lot but I have a lot to do, this time of year the job list gets very long and I need to get ready for our holiday to. By the time we get on holiday we will definitely need it and we physically have to go away, we can’t have a week off and stay at home otherwise we never rest 😂

Posted in Friesland Farm

Flowers, a bit of work in between & more flowers 😝

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th March: Eeeek it’s a big week this week with Mothers Day on Sunday, by the time I publish this I will have worked with 4/500 stems of various flowers and foliage 😲 and who knew I would absolutely love every single minute of it 🥰 My own flowers are slowly emerging so I still can’t use those but what I will be using are 100% British grown flowers and foliage and not a single stem imported. This is massively important to me, there are lists with wonderfully tempting flowers of all kinds on them, am I tempted, of course I am, would I do it, not a chance. I have been happily connected with British growers and sellers for a year now and each and every one of them is passionate about British grown flowers, sustainability, nature friendly gardening/farming and packaging materials, I have found my tribe 🙌

Why is it so important to me? Well just like food production I think it’s important to know what you are eating, where it comes from and how it was grown/reared and the more I learn the more I know it’s the right way for me. If I can convince a few others along the way then that is a great thing, the more of us on the same road the better off the planet will be.

It is a windy morning this morning, have I ever told you I hate the wind 😂 (many times) it is just that everything clanks and groans around here when it is so windy. My ultimate fear is the roof blowing off, sheets of tin flying around is not something I want to see, they are secure but Mother Nature is fierce as we all know and she can do whatever she wants if she sets her mind to it. It’s not that bad out there but a fear is a fear and not easily shrugged off 🙄 I have a plethora of jobs to chose from this morning, the cleaning needs doing, the bed needs stripping which means plenty of washing (too windy to get it on the line though) the hens at the back need cleaning out and so do the ducks. All the while the week ahead is buzzing round in my head, jobs to do in the flower garden, Mother’s Day flower payment links to go out, Friday flowers, Flos birthday, flower seeds to order, veg seeds I haven’t got yet that I need to order, what to get for dinner later. Another cup of tea before I begin I think lol.

I cleaned, hoovered, polished most of the rooms, changed the bed sheets and put the washing on and by early afternoon sat down for lunch. Charlie came over with Oscar and I looked after him while Charlie went and did her weekly shop. It didn’t go too well, he went to sleep but woke up 10/15 minutes later and I could not pacify him at all 😂 luckily Charlie was not away too long. You think as a seasoned parent you will be able to deal with most things as a grandparent but if you don’t have the milk on tap you are onto a loser 😝

Tuesday: A better day weatherwise though still not that warm and intermittent rain so unless it warms up as the day goes on I am not planning on going outside much. I did check the seedlings and plants in the greenhouse though and things are coming on nicely although we have temps dropping to around -5 again tonight 😏 hopefully that will be it for a while. We need some sunshine/warmth after the rain to get everything growing and the tree leaves sprouting, the buds are there but they are holding off for the time being.

The sun came out and there was a job I needed to do that was in the small tunnel so I figured today was a good day to do that and besides I wanted to get it done so that the tunnel was good to go when the time came. I could have waited for John to do it but to be honest he has a lot of projects on the go already plus the day job so I put my entry level carpentry skills into action. We have wood lying around so I measured what needed, gathered up the wood, got it all sawn to length and put it altogether 😁 I am suitably impressed with myself I can tell you.

Find some suitable wood, screws, saw, tape measure and cordless screwdriver……..
…….and build this 😁 the extra box I needed to finish down one side of the small tunnel 🥰

I just need to line it and fill it with compost, the seep has been cut to size and in the first photo you can see the piece of hose that links the two seep hoses together. I will now be able to attach a water hose to the end and leave it to water itself for an hour or two while I get on with other jobs 😁 ✔️

One of my main aims this year is to get the seep hoses in place beforehand, usually I am trying to lay them when everything has started to grow 😝

Wednesday: We had a frost this morning so it was quite cold over night but not the -5 they predicted I don’t think, the reason I say that is because the puddles were not frozen at 7.30 this morning so it can’t have gone down that low 🤷‍♀️ The temperatures are already up and I think it will be quite a nice day all in all. It is Florence’s 5th birthday today, oh to be five again 🥰 When I was five I was living in Swinbrook and being put on the school bus each morning to go to school in Burford, I can’t imagine that happens much these days 😬

Preparations begin for the Mothers Day flowers, first thing this morning was bucket washing. Buckets for conditioning the flowers need to be scrupulously clean, bacteria in the water is the main cause of premature decay in cut flowers, they are scrubbed with washing up liquid and warm water then thoroughly rinsed and dried ready to go. There will be wrapping to prepare and sundries such as string, raffia and tape to check (just in case I don’t have enough) All the wrapping I use is compostable, even the cellophane is plant based and the sellotape is plastic free 😁

John is at home today working on the flower workshop, I am not really sure what else to call it, I already have the small flower shed in the driveway and studio seems a bit presumptuous so if anyone has an idea please put it in the comments.

I spent most of the first half of the morning sorting out wrapping for the flowers, if I can pre do as much as possible it will save time when I start making up the bouquets. I also had vases to wrap and they are also done and ready to go. Next it was time to go outside and start cutting foliage, the pussy willow is amazing and it has sprouted up everywhere in the ménage 😂 I am thinking I might use this space for growing foliage, seems like a good use as it no longer gets used for the horses. I also cut some of the remaining stems from the willow trees, the stems have now turned a lovely orange colour, I already had some vibrant green stems of a dog wood and I added to that some lilac stems that are still in bud. Then it started to rain and it was quite cold with it so I abandoned that for the time being, tomorrow I will cut some more of anything useful I can find 😁

Went round to see Florence for her birthday 🥳 and eat cake 🎂🥰

Thursday: Drizzle first thing this morning but it feels warmer than of late, we could do with some sunshine though, it would help all the growth along now we have had some rain. It is flower delivery day today and boy have I got a lot of British grown flowers coming 😂 I have also been cutting whatever I have here that is ready. This morning I have cut hellebore and a few anemone, some honey berry that is just beginning to flower and some trailing ivy. I have got lots of flowers to make up in various forms for Mothers Day, bouquets, bunches and grave flowers and can’t wait until the flowers arrive, I have gone over and over the number I will need but as it is the first year I am panicking that I haven’t ordered enough 🙄 Once they are here and I can see exactly what I have I can then allocate some to Friday flowers and for other orders I have that are not Mothers Day related. I will have help tomorrow afternoon and evening, Charlie has offered to give me a hand which is great otherwise I think I would be working into the small hours 😂 I am loving it though and already thinking about things I can do for Mothers Day next year!

Once the flowers arrive they will all need sorting and conditioning, some need different kinds of treatment but basically they all need to sit in water in a cool dark place to take up as much moisture as the stems can hold. The hellebore I cut this morning all have a tiny 1mm line scored right down the stems and are immersed up to the flowers so that they can uptake as much as possible, the anemone just stand in water so you can see that some are more high maintenance than others.

As it often does, everything happened at once, I had a phonecall from Johns business insurance that I was in the middle of payingwhen the first delivery of flowers arrived quickly followed by the second delivery. I needed to get them all in water asap, they smelt amazing and the colours of the tulips were fabulous.

This gorgeous lot will all be turned into Mothers Day bouquets and bunches 🥰

Sam arrived straight from school with the children ready for Mia’s swimming lesson. They came bursting in and were all excited about having a bath a Nana’s, the reason Sam had said they would be having a bath is because they had been playing in the mud at Nursery and were mud splattered everywhere 😂 Time is tight on a Thursday for Sam so factoring in a bath when they get home from swimming is pushing it a bit, a bath at Nana’s was the solution. The question I asked them first is ‘did you have fun playing in the mud’ happy faces and shouts of yes was all the confirmation needed 🥰 I have never known children so happy to be having a bath, Mia on the other hand was mighty upset because she had to go swimming and would have preferred to stay and have a bath with them lol. I bathed them, washed their muddy hair and faces, and got their dinner, at least once they got home they would be ready to go to bed.

Friday: It’s Friday 😁 not any old Friday and definitely Friday flowers day but this time it’s all mothers day flowers. It will be a busy day and I am nervously excited about doing them all 🥰

Blimey 5pm and just finished, that was back breaking work lol, to be fair I did look after Oscar for a couple of hours while Charlie did the wrapping 😝 but still it was a full day of prepping, bunching, wrapping and tidying up. I think I need a nap!

I did manage to get Friday flowers out too which was a bonus. I made up five bunches and they would t all fit in one buckets and touch the water so I put them into two buckets. When I went out later someone had bought a bunch but then put the other bunch into the second bucket and took the bucket as well! I wouldn’t mind but I was really stretched for buckets with all the bunches and bouquets I had made up, I can only assume they used it so the car didn’t get wet and are planning on returning it 🙏

Saturday: I was awake early so got up made a cuppa and went back to bed to listen to a podcast. The electric went off at around 6am but luckily came back on five minutes later, I decided I may as well get up and have breakfast. I have a busy day of flower collections today but I do want to get other jobs done as well. I have asked John to reconnect the mains outside now that we have a mild period of weather coming up, it is so mild this morning I stood outside in my pjs and drank my tea 😁 First though he has gone to the builders merchant to get so bits for the workshop, I asked him ‘while you are there can you buy me some more buckets please’ 😂 builders buckets will have to do for now.

I had a delivery of dahlia tubers arrive yesterday, I have lost most of mine this year because of the cold weather, hopefully the ones in the front beds will have survived.

Oooosh it’s nearly 4.30pm I am on nearly 12,000 steps and my back is aching but Mothers Day flowers are done, collected and I am pooped. I spent half the time weeding in the garden and the other half with customers collecting flowers, it’s been amazing and I have loved every minute of it. Shelley came over with Josh and Flo mid afternoon and we dug up carrots, the kids washed them and then they took them home ready for roast dinner tomorrow, luckily we are invited 🥰 I also sold all the Friday flower bunches from the shed as well as a jam jar, there still some narcissi and daffs left but that is it 😁

On a sadder note the female Turkey, Tedalena, died yesterday ☹️ and now Ted is alone again, to be honest she wasn’t in the greatest shape when she came to us and that was more to do with her breeding than anything so I am surprised she lasted this long, the avian lockdown has not helped matters either.

Sunday: We spent the first part of the morning working outside, I have been weeding and moving pots of plants around, monitoring the seeds I have growing in the greenhouse, watering if necessary. Big Billy the tort has woken up and is moving around, he is still in the greenhouse until he acclimatises and then will go out, Voldertort is not mobile yet. It’s Mothers Day and Charlie and Macca came over with Oscar mid morning for a while, then we nipped off to the garden centre and when we got back Sam, Luke and the children arrived. Once they left we went round to see my Mum and then onto Shelley’s for a roast dinner 😁 Busy day but really lovely.

Lots of plants and trees are just beginning to spring into life which is fabulous, a bit behind this year I think but they will catch up easily enough. I spend a lot of my time looking and wondering exactly where I am going to be planting all the seedlings once they are big enough and trying to weed and tidy areas ready for when that time comes, but there is always so much to do 😝

Well that was the week that was all about Mothers Day flowers, it has been an epic week, I have loved it even though it was pretty full on, I will now spam the blog with pictures 😂

Friesland Farm Flowers Shilton, farm grown or British grown flowers and foliage, bunches, bouquets, wreaths, Shilton, Oxon

And the good thing is I am already getting repeat business 🥰 so something is right x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Flowers, plants & seeds.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th February 2023: Another reasonable day coming up, not much sign of any sun but it is dry and not freezing which is a bonus. I have a busy morning ahead of me doing flowers, the heart tributes are very popular 🥰 which is just as well because I love doing them. I am not doing Valentines flowers as most of my customers are women and although in the words of Miley Cyrus ‘I can buy myself flowers’ it is mostly men who buy them on this particular day. That is probably stereotyping a little but I imagine the numbers if collected would back that up. Men tend to go for the red roses which as we know are not seasonal at this time of year and so not grown in the UK in Winter, they are all imported. I don’t want to knock it but we really need to change attitudes, in Victorian times it was traditional to give small heart shaped boxes of violets, it would be nice to get back to that. I have a bit of an insight into how some of the menfolk in my family work though and they are definitely mow the grass within an inch of its life and are red rose people 😂 no matter how much I try educating them 🤪 So we have to reach out to those who are environmentally aware and get them to voice their preference ‘how much carbon was generated with those roses being imported’ ‘ I would prefer flowers that are grown here in the UK’ and then of course you have to hope they remember what you told them 😝 Joking aside there has been lots of chatter on social media pages about ‘them and us’ florists that use imported flowers, and growers and florists that don’t. It is not about bashing people for what they do it is about educating them to do it differently and besides I am pretty sure fifty years ago when flowers started to be imported in large numbers those growing the majority of flowers for sale in the UK felt exactly the same, it is just reverting back. A couple of florists with shops are backing the UK flower industry and selling nothing but British grown flowers so it is possible, there are high profile designer florists that are doing the same, we just need more of them to get onboard, after all it is the only planet we have and we need to look after it much better than we have done.

Busy morning so far, first get the ordered flowers done then out to feed the horses hay as the grass has pretty much been eaten off and with no sign of any rain or sun it’s not growing much then sort out printing QR codes for the flowers in the shed to make it easier for payment and then sit down and order some floristry supplies. Trying to remember everything I need to order is key I really should write it down as I go but no 🤪 I already have a slow stream of orders coming in for Mothers Day flowers and I need to make sure I have enough string and raffia, I also need to work out exactly how many orders I can realistically process before I get carried away 😂 By this time it is lunchtime and I am starving but I need to go through messages and emails first to make sure I don’t miss anything.

Seasonal, British grown cut flowers and pussy willow, Flowers at Friesland Farm.

Tuesday: A lovely day, I spent some time in the greenhouse in the morning dividing up plants then a little bit of cutting back dead stuff in the flowers beds. I have to confess that I have also been reading quite a lot, normally it would be reading up on things or learning something new but this time it was pure fiction. I tend to binge read 😂 I won’t read for weeks or even months and then once I start I don’t stop very readily especially if it is a series of books. In the last few days I have just read four, yes four books in a series that is new to me. I am one of those people who resent any interruption while I am reading so intensely too, stopping to do household or farm chores is a necessary irritation though. The only interruptions that are not resented are visits from the children and grandchildren 🥰 And yesterday afternoon Shelley, Josh and Flo came over and we had a lovely walk down the lane and back, it almost felt like it was fully spring (but I won’t be fooled) The kids then helped me fill a large sack of hay and take it out to the horses filling up the water buckets while we were there. Flo is definitely an outdoor girl happily helping with the task while chatting away, Josh preferred climbing things and dragging large branches around 😂

Wednesday: A frosty start but the sun soon came out and it was very pleasant for a good few hours. I did a bit of gardening, one new bed around the side got particular attention, bulbs planted as well as a couple of evergreen shrubs plus cutting back dead stuff and mulching with woodchip. It is only a small bed near the back of the building but it can be seen from the gateway so I thought evergreen would look nice all year round. I planted a skimmia and a lemon and lime nandina 😁 A delivery of ballast arrived at some point during the day and then late afternoon I went for some Bowen therapy which is always something to look forward too.

Thursday: A bit of a dank start to the day today the forecast is drizzle I think. There are plenty of jobs on my to do list but I think I should divide the list into ‘want to do’ and ‘don’t really want to do’ 😂 or ‘want to do but can’t’ and ‘don’t want to do but can’ 😝 I really want to be sowing seeds but I am holding off. The average last frost date range is April 11th – 20th in my location, that means I need to work back six weeks to find my optimum seed sowing date, if I go for a date in the middle of that range it takes me back to March 4th so I am a couple of weeks away from that. The reason for this timeline is that seeds that are sown are generally plants that are big enough to go out in six weeks time, the weather needs to be good so that the new plants do not get damaged or frosted which would undo all the hard work you did in the first place. Then there are the amount of daylight hours needed, the more there are the better the plants will grow, short and strong as opposed to weak and leggy. There are plenty of seeds that can also be sown direct in March and of course you can grow seeds with some sort of heat, even indoors with the domestic heating on but they do all need the light (once sprouted) for strength after all that’s how they produce the energy to grow. I know all of this and yet I am still tempted to get something sown 🤪 but I also know that later sown seeds will readily catch up 😁

I spent the evening getting flowers ready for tomorrow morning as I am off out for the day.

Friday: A busy couple of hours first thing getting everything done and the flowers out for sale, I then spent a lovely day with all six grandchildren and parents at the Cotswold Wildlife Park. This is just five minutes down the road from me and so it is quick and easy to decide if the weather is going to be ok enough for the day. It was a little windy but apart from that it was a great day out, it is a lot of walking and I was impressed with how even the twins managed five hours of wandering round. For anyone not familiar with the park and wondering if it is worth the trip it definitely is, I think it is one of the best value for money parks around. You can literally spend all day there and just about cover everything and there is a lot of different things to do, reptiles, bats, penguins, lions, giraffes, zebras, farmyard animals, train ride, play park and the coffee is decent 😁 I was whacked when I got home and fell asleep mid evening 😂

I am a lucky Nana 🥰

Saturday: Another decent day apart from a strong breeze, I spent most of the morning in the greenhouse which was pleasant and out of the wind. I have sown some seeds 🤪 sweet peas & snap dragons which are indoors on the window sill, I pricked out some sweet Williams that have been growing over winter and sorted out some seeds that I saved from plants last year. I did do a little bit outside that was mostly cutting back dead stuff and pulling up annual plants that have gone over, a little bit here and there will get me ahead.

Sunday: Again the weather is fooling us with its charm, a decent day that was really nice once the sun came out. We did the morning jobs and then went out for breakfast and got on again once we returned. I spent some time in the greenhouse sorting out seeds that I had collected from plants at the end of last year and then a good amount of time in the garden tidying up the cold frame area. This is where I keep plants over winter that I dug up or divided in Autumn, they end up covered in a blanket of leaves and now is a good time to get that sorted as it will start to harbour pests. I did find a bright green caterpillar that had been devouring some small plants 😏 and plenty of slugs and snails, they have all been gathered up with the leaves and deposited elsewhere away from the plants. Some of the plants I labelled up and put out for sale along with the seeds I had packeted up. Shelley, Martin and the children called in for a cuppa late afternoon, they helped Grampy with the feeding and egg collecting and when they left we went to Charlie and Maccas for a roast dinner 🥰

Another week over and a new one about to begin, have a lovely week everyone.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Rain, lots of learning & and holibob booked.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 10th January 2023: I am feeling a lot better now but the weather leaves a lot to be desired doesn’t it? I am of an age now though when I am totally at peace with ‘what doesn’t get done today will eventually get done at some point’ so don’t stress over it life is too short for that. There is plenty that I could be doing outside but it’s too wet and so it can wait until it is pleasant enough to go out and do it which will be far more enjoyable. I can find lots to do inside and I can find lots to research, read up on or plan which is exactly what I have been doing. I have done some costings for the workshops and roughly planned the times of the year when I will do them, I have made a note of significant flower dates through the year so I know when they are and I have brushed up on some skills so you see I have not been idle at all. Yesterday morning I spent the time sorting out all of the dried flowers I had hung at the end of the season, they are now all nicely stored and ready to do something with when the time comes and the dried flower area is clear ready for hanging the next lot though that won’t be for a while yet. I invested a tiny amount of my profit in a lighting ring to take better photos, I did one practice photo this morning and it is going to make such a difference. All I did was take a snap of clutter on the side but the with and without shots are so different that I can see it was a worthwhile purchase. I also bought a ground auger which attaches to a drill to plant bulbs, again a game changer as you can plant soo many more in less time plus the auger is doing all the hard work for you (especially on this ground which is very difficult to dig in places) I have a lot of bulbs left over and want to put them all down the driveway but having planted some before I know that it is hard work, hopefully this will be a much easier way 🤷‍♀️ I do keep looking at the garden thinking I need to do some cutting back and some weeding but I am also aware that plenty of insects will be hibernating or overwintering in all that dead stuff so I don’t want to disturb them too early, I need to get the balance right. The insect population is in massive decline 😞 we need to be doing all we can to increase diversity in our garden areas. We all know about what plants butterfly’s and bees like but there are thousands more insects that need our support, ground dwellers need healthy soil and plenty of cover or decaying debris, pollinators need a wide range of different types of flowers and foliage. I believe it is up to us to provide a rich diverse garden area to increase the different species of insects and their volume, this is regeneration.

Friday 13th: The weather is shocking lol, rain and lots of it, plenty of water sitting in our paddocks and the Ford in the village is about to spill over I think 🙄 especially if we get as much as is forecast tomorrow. What have I been up to over the past couple of days, well I would like to say I had been outside working on the garden but I haven’t. I figure that it will all wait until the weather is a little more settled and nicer, I have become a fair weather gardener over the last few years. I no longer want to get soaked or end up with chilblains on my feet or have hands that are so numb they take an age to get the feeling back, nope I am definitely moving into my wiser years 😂 Instead I have been finding plenty of jobs indoors including clearing through my entire wardrobe and finally getting rid of stuff I either don’t like or doesn’t fit (and I hang on to it in case one day it miraculously does 🤪) all gone and it feels great. I will be continuing to move through the house with the same determination to declutter everywhere.

I was unaware it was Friday 13th until I typed the date ☝️ up there but it seems fitting somehow that today was the day I chose to begin an online course in funeral flowers 🤷‍♀️ I have no idea what really prompted me to do it but I figured it was another string to my bow. The course is all about sustainable, compostable methods and is geared towards, but not exclusively for, natural or green burials, it seemed fitting somehow and I figured any skills and tips were transferable to other areas so it was a no brainer really 😁

Saturday: More rain, high winds urrrggh I am so done with winter already 🤪 It does offer me the opportunity to stay in the warm and do something useful though. So plenty of learning on the online course which I have to say is very comprehensive and informative I am so glad I decided to do it and as I suspected there are skill transfer opportunities all the way through so great value for money in my opinion. I have also spent some time researching various plants and flowers as well as looking through lots of social media (flower related naturally) watching you tube sessions and listening to podcasts of various types. Yes that is what winters are for I think but still I eagerly await the warmer days. I have also ordered some British grown flowers so that I can have a play and a practise doing a few things 🥰 that will feed my flower habit for a bit. To be honest I have to do some homework/task for the online course using what is available at this time of year, I do have some bits in the garden but I don’t have any narcissi out yet and I want to have a go at using those as well so I ordered some in. I was really saddened to see that one of the cottages in the village was having some landscaping done and had all the mature shrubs ripped out 😢 omg I used to walk past and think ‘look at those lovely specimens, I would love to be able to cut some of those’ I wish I had been there when they started ripping them out, I would have told them I will come and get them, a piece with a root would have been enough. I don’t know what they are replacing the lovely old walls and shrubs with but I can hazard a guess that it will be pretty sterile now 😔 There should be laws against it lol or at least proper consultation with someone who has half an idea about nature 😭

Sunday: Not a bad day weather wise, no rain at least 🤪 I did a quick online workshop for making reels 🙄 this has become more important as time has gone on as the algorithms favour these kind of posts over stills. To be honest I just like to keep up (as best as possible) with technology and it’s avenues, it is surprising how quickly you get left behind otherwise. I put some beef in the slow cooker and we went to my sisters for a mid morning coffee where we got waylaid and booked a holiday while we were there 😁 John is very happy now we have one on the calendar and we will be booking another for later in the year. It is a big year for us, John will be 60 😳 in June and we will have been married for 40 years (how the heck did that happen 🤷‍♀️) I have secured myself some rubies to mark the occasion 😉 and I feel we deserve a few nice holidays and day trips this year of all years 🥰 Shelley, Martin and the children walked over to visit in the afternoon (I did invite them for dinner but they were already going to Martins Mums) and once they had gone we had a lovely roast dinner with a crumble for after. The temperatures are set to plummet tonight, a lot lower than they have been anyway but with that should come sunshine tomorrow ☀️ so I will look forward to that.

No photos this week as I haven’t taken any but I will try and remedy that, in the meantime:

Posted in Friesland Farm

2023 🥳 Happy New Year

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Friday 6th January 2023: We are already the first week into the new year, a time for new beginnings, hopes, dreams and plans. I will briefly recap what happened since I last blogged.

The day after returning from Lapland I came down with a bug, nothing surprising there really but it went on for days and days, nausea, cold, shivering, extreme tiredness, not really what you want in the run up to Christmas as I could barely function. Couple that with the minus temperatures all week long and the difficulties of getting water to the animals every day and life was a tad difficult for a while. I had Christmas table decorations to get made for orders but I could hardly function normally let alone creatively. I had also agreed to make something for the church pulpit from dried flowers.

Thursday 15th December: The temp on the van was registering -10 at 7.30am this morning so what it went down to overnight is anyones guess. This year has definitely been extremes in temperature, I think that might be the coldest we have had here. Hopefully today it is going to get above 0 which will be a massive help because trying to get water to all the animals is bloody difficult I can tell you.

At one point I did think I would have to cancel the Christmas orders or at least put them off but by the designated date I was able to get them all made and off to customers so that was good. It made me realise that I probably would strike weddings off my possibility list because if the Lupus flared I would not be able to fulfil the order and I wouldn’t want that.

I just about felt well enough by the 20th to go out and get the last of the Christmas shopping bits and I never normally leave it that late. By the 23rd I was feeling normal and looking forward the the festivities, we had Christmas carols that evening round the pond which has a Christmas tree in the middle which was a lovely start to Christmas. A lovely relaxed Christmas Eve, Charlie, Macca and Oscar for Christmas Day and then everyone for Boxing Day breakfast and round to Shelley’s for supper in the evening. I was feeling very content, happy and lucky, we went round to my sisters the day after Boxing Day and by now I had developed a tiny irritating cough but nothing too much. Well the cough got worse, much worse, to the point where I was having to hold my side during coughing fits as I was afraid it would herniate, I couldn’t sit down or lie down without spasmodic coughing fits that became continuous. Along with this came sinusitis, a fuzzy head, loss of hearing and I went though a whole pack of toilet rolls just getting rid of the mucus. I felt pretty sorry for myself and was mostly confined to the sofa for what seemed like an eternity. It’s a good job we didn’t have NYE plans and we were supposed to go to Charlie for New Year’s Day dinner but she was ill and so we didn’t go until the following day. All in all Christmas has been about illness and not just for me as I know lots of people who have had similar experiences and are struggling to shrug the bugs off.

I am still not well, better but not well and as luck would have it I had a telephone appointment with the rheumatology dept on the 4th. That was actually pretty constructive and thorough, the upshot is that because I am on the immune suppressants my body can’t fight off the bugs successfully. I have also had an ongoing UTI which at this point I have had three lots of antibiotics for but I can’t shift it. No wonder I feel so poorly, there will be a meeting to discuss how to treat me, it will be a tightrope walk 🙄 Basically in order for my body to fight these infections I will probably need to come off the immune suppressants in order for the antibiotics to work but that in turn could then trigger a Lupus flare, I am stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. Obviously I need my body to repair and I don’t think it is going to do that while I am on the medication, the gamble will be how long to I stop it for before it becomes too long 🤷‍♀️

What else happened over Christmas, well we had a weird thing happen when I couldn’t find Diesel’s bowl one morning. He gets fed by the back door and has a stainless steel bowl, this particular morning it was gone and despite searching for it I could not find it. So I found another bowl and used that for his morning and the night feed, the next morning that bowl was gone as well 🤪 I imagine it was a fox that carried them off but where too that is the question. We did find one right at he back in one of the paddocks but never found the other yet. One of those nights I woke up at 1.30 with a coughing fit and could hear something up on the roof, I went into the boot room and the dogs and cats were fast asleep so it wasn’t any of them, also not human otherwise the dogs would have been barking. It was definitely heavier than squirrels or birds so again I am thinking the fox was up there maybe eating the last of the apples that were on the roof still. I told John in the morning and he said ‘didn’t you go out and have a look’ no I bloody didn’t lol, I have watched too many horror films to be that stupid 😂

John has been busy, while I was incapacitated, taking down the partitions in the stable area in order to rebuild it into a work shop for the flowers. He also had to do everything else bless him as I literally could not do anything. Normally I would have spent the time planning the year ahead and working out what I want to get done, what needs planting/sowing and this year what workshops I want to offer but I have not been able to do any of that at all. I have bulbs that arrived that are just sat outside, I have not checked on any of the seeds or bulbs I had already sown for at least a month now but none of that can be helped and I am sure I will catch up at some point. The weather apart from that very cold snap has been mild, mild means plenty of rain, plenty of rain means the front paddock has a lake in it, standard stuff for winter.

That in a nutshell is how the last month has gone for me, illness, Christmas, more illness and not a lot else getting done at all. But as always I am not one to be defeated and so I will keep doing what I can in bite size pieces until I get to where I need to be 😁 I want to be offering various flower workshops this year coming, I want to increase the amount of flowers I sell and I want to make sure I have flowers available on a regular basis so that customers know when they can come and get them. I am looking forward to this next year and seeing what it brings plus I will be getting back on track with the home grown veg which went a little by the by last year, those are my plans at least, we will see how they go.

Today I am going to be clearing and tidying the office/craft room which has become clogged with all manner of things. Dried flowers, craft stuff, Christmas stuff, it all needs sorting and putting away so that I can see what is what in there again. I was going to go out with the girls today but I have decided that I need to limit the possibility of picking up any more bugs. Firstly I don’t think my body can handle much more and secondly I would worry about my chances if I had to end up in hospital with the state of things at the minute 😔 I don’t think the outlook would be good to be honest. The state of the NHS has been a hotly talked about topic as you can imagine, my take on it is that undoubtedly there has been a lack of funding but I also think there is far more to it than that. Purely from a laypersons point of view the system is broken in so many areas it would be difficult to know where to start. It needs looking at from a fresh point of view instead of trying to patch up the holes, easier said than done but maybe that is what happens with anything, a system reaches capacity, collapses and a new system is born.

We have had the first goose egg of the year, that is ridiculously early but as it is so mild not unexpected to be honest.

We are well into the New Year and so as I publish this today I have some exciting plans to look forward to and implement, I already have enquiries coming in which is both fabulous and daunting at the same time 😂 but ‘go big or go home’ Charlie has told me so here I am jumping in both feet first 🤪

Posted in Friesland Farm

It’s hot and dry, that is all I have to say 🥵

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 9th August 2022: No idea what I did on Monday apart from cut a whole load of flowers for an order that was cancelled 😏 and went to my brothers in the evening for his birthday. The rest is a blur 😝

Tuesday: After making up a couple of jam jars, sorting flowers for drying and making up a bouquet I went to Shelley’s with Charlie, Sam and the twins also went and we spent most of the day there. Shelley made lunch and the children played indoors some of the time and with the splash mat outside some of the time. It was hot 🥵

When I came home I had half an hour sit down and then spent 4 hours watering, yes 4 bloody hours of my life watering. Watering everything that was necessary, about two thirds of everything, the other third I have had to let take it’s chance 😔 Normally, in a normal year I would only be concentrating on the tunnels, greenhouse and anything in pots but this year it has to include all the beds both ornamental and vegetable. We have had no significant rain since we came back from our holiday in early June and coupled with that we have had ridiculously high temperature consistently and it’s not over yet. This means in order to keep everything alive I have to constantly water, the fact that I didn’t do any last night has a big knock on effect the next day. It’s tiring but I have invested a lot of time and effort into the veg, flowers and ornamental beds and so I can’t just give up, not to mention the money that plants cost. To give up now would cost me dearly, mentally, emotionally and financially, this year has taken gardeners by surprise but I will make sure it doesn’t happen again next year 🙄

Wednesday: It’s sooo bloody hot that evening standing around makes you sweat 😅 uuurgh give me back the traditional English weather if I wanted relentless heat I would go on holiday to a hot country and that is something we don’t do 😂

Busy morning of getting jobs done, cutting flowers for delivery today and then on to pick tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers and plums. I also decided that damage limitation was called for and pulled the cabbage and kohl Rabi plus carrots, it’s too hard trying to keep them watered so time to get them in the freezer. The courgettes I am picking when they are small (baby) so that I don’t need to water as much as I would to get them to normal size. From here on in fruit and outside veg will have to take their chances, I will only be watering the necessary plants.

I then spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon prepping it all for the freezer. Slicing, chopping, peeling, blanching, bagging, cooling and finally freezing. I also made up three batches of crumble mix, stewed some apples with sugar and some maple syrup and made up four small apple crumbles which went into the freezer along with a bag of crumble mix. I did intend to make some plum jam but in all honestly I was tired by then and still had flowers to make up so I cleared away, washed up and I will do the jam in the next couple of days.

John came home early and went off to deliver the flowers for me, I had a phone call from the neighbouring farm to say they had lost some piglets and could I keep an eye out for them, I haven’t seen them yet but hopefully they will find them soon.

Tonight I will not be able to get any watering done as we are off on a short train journey for an evening trip. It’s going to be a round of watering for me again tomorrow that will take hours 🙄

With the complete lack of rain we have decided to increase the amount of rain we can hold, the amount that comes off our roof is an awful lot so makes sense to hold as much of it as possible and so we have ordered another 12,000 litres of tanks, that will take us up to around 30,000litres of water storage. Sod’s law we won’t even need it next year but ‘be prepared’ is a sensible mantra I reckon and so prepared is what I will be, for that at least.

If you are reading this and living in a hot, dry climate then all tips appreciated 😁 Approx 9th June was the last time we had any significant rain and temps have been at least 25c and mostly in the 30s pushing up just beyond 40c 🥵 According to farmers there is no significant rain in the forecast for at least another 30 days 🙄 crops are suffering as well as wildlife. Last night while watering I noticed around 30 sparrows making a racket in a puddle of water I had made on the driveway, I went into the garden and collected up all the shallow dishes I could find and filled them with water for them. A Robin was also sat in the tree watching me and so I filled up the bird bath (which I do daily) and watched him enjoying a much needed bath lol. I know I am going to hate the winter weather when it comes but seriously this is another level of ridiculousness 😬 If it is climate change, it’s coming a lot faster than predicted, it’s not good news for the planet or anything that lives on it 😔

Thursday: No idea what I did and it’s too hot to care 😝 I did plant up some alstroemeria at around 9pm, it wasn’t much cooler but the light was fading and I wanted to get them into the ground. The moon was beautiful, almost a full moon but not quite, that comes tomorrow evening.

Friday: What can I say except, it’s hot and dry, I am basically just trying to get from day to day until hopefully one of the days the temperature falls or we have rain 🙄 I spent most of the day making up button holes and hair combs with dried flowers plus a small arrangement to fix to a headband. I can’t show you the pictures yet as it is for a wedding that hasn’t happened but when it does I will.

Saturday: I was up early as was John, he went off to get feed for the poultry, I did the usual household bits then outside to get some watering done, We then had to pop out for an hour and get back to hand over some flowers to a customer 🥰 I can’t remember what other jobs we did but there were a fair few before coming indoors for the middle part of the day and watch some films. Back out in the evening once it was cool enough and more watering, I watched the meteor shower for a while, saw three, before going to bed.

Sunday: Still bloody hot 🥵 seriously it’s scorching weather, relentless too. We were up early again and it was nice and cool at that time of the morning so I got some watering done, John said ‘shall we have more tea’ at 7am, ‘nope’ I replied ‘we need to get the small paddock cut before it gets too hot’ so that’s what we spent the next hour doing. It had got long (long but mostly dead) and needed tidying up. John carried on outside for a couple of hours while I came inside and made plum jam. The thing is that the fruit will not wait no matter how hot the temps are the jam still needs making 🙄 We then spent the hottest part of the day inside again and went back out until dark once it had cooled down a touch, though that is not much at the minute.

I am sure you are all feeling it too, hot and bothered, the paddocks are as dead as I have ever seen them, there are huge fissures opening up in the ground, the massive trees that are around 50 years old are beginning to wilt, the berries that the birds would be feeding on to fatten up for winter are shrivelling up and there is not a drop of water to be found anywhere for the wildlife such as bees, butterflies, birds, beetles etc. Each day I am trying to keep plants alive and each evening when I go out they are parched again. I deadheaded some roses earlier and the petals were crispy 😳 I don’t think I have ever sweated so much before even when sitting still, when I was outside I kept thinking something was crawling on my leg but no it’s just beads of sweat running 😂 I am not one for praying but spending most of my time just trying to keep things alive is seriously taking its toll on my sanity so I am praying the rain comes tomorrow. It will fill up the water butts and hopefully give me the day off from running around like an idiot, I may even be able to get something different done for a change. Anyone know any good rain dances 😝

Posted in Friesland Farm

Busy week, painting projects & preparing to flower farm 😁

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 24th January 2022: Milder than it has been, dry and the ground is not frozen yay that means I can get outside and get something done. First though I had to get the animals all sorted as John has gone to work for a couple of hours but will be back mid morning. As soon as I could I went outside to get the job done that I had gone to sleep thinking about, sad I know 😂 The job in question was cutting back the lilacs in the veg garden. Quite a few years ago we thinned out the lilacs at the front and heeled in some whips, they were supposed to be dug up at a later point. That was probably something like seven years ago so you can guess how big they have got. They are at the end of the bed where I will be growing the cut flowers and so I cut them down by half in order to get the maximum sunshine but still provide a wind barrier, I also hope I will get some good lilac flowers from them although possibly not this year. I dug up a fair few whips to pot up and there was just one big root I couldn’t budge. John came home at that point and we went off to the diy shop to get some paint for the roadside advertising boards. I want to paint them the same colour (or near enough) to the logo background and try to pull everything together a bit better. Once back home John had to go off to the bank to shut down an account we haven’t used for around ten years but still had a small amount of money left in it. I sorted out what would be for dinner this evening and then got the smallest board in to give it a clean up and repair some little parts that had got damaged in the wind. I realised I needed to re do the blackboard paint so called John who was on his way back, he turned around and went to get the paint from the diy shop, bad management from me there but at least I can get the boards sorted. While John was out doing the afternoon rounds I painted the smallest of the boards with new blackboard paint and once it has had a makeover it will look splendid. John also went out and dug up that last root for me 😁 tomorrow we will go out there and put everything through the chipper, tidy up and that bed will be ready when I am for planting up.

Last night while checking my emails I looked at a particular website and decided I might like to go on one of the courses they were offering. I talked it over with John because it’s not cheap lol, but I am so excited to have booked a cut flower day course with Sarah Raven 🥰 She is the guru of cut flowers in the UK and I can’t wait to go and do that, yep it’s fair to say I am ‘cock a hoop’ about that.

At times I think to myself ‘whoa, what are you doing’ and then other times I am full steam ahead with ideas and plans, the one thing I keep telling myself is to just roll with it and enjoy everything, I mean what could be better than growing flowers all summer long. The one thing I did think was that at least picking flowers is an early morning job 😁

The poultry are obviously all still shut away and it would seem that it’s particularly bad this year 🙄 On the one hand it is easy for us to do them every day and they are not all over the place laying but on the other hand I kind of wonder what is the point of having them if they can’t get outside for four months of the year and so far that’s two years in a row we have had to lock them down 😔

Tuesday: oooosh been very busy this morning, after getting the morning jobs done including the animals, I got straight onto painting the primer on the advertising board for the front of the drive. I figured if I did that quickly it would be drying while I went about the rest of the day’s business. Today on the agenda was chipping up all the prunings from the lilacs and the apple trees I pruned the other week. That took around three hours and all the mulch went back onto the ground under the lilacs and around the lavender. John meanwhile was working on the area that will now be grass, it was the herb bed and I have dug everything out and potted up or replanted elsewhere. The sides of the bed need removing and all the soil needs moving so it is level with the pathway (although the path will also be grassed) He has been doing a fabulous job, riddling all the soil as he goes and putting on the rhubarb bed which really needed a top up. Around 11 John went out to look at a couple of jobs and an hour later returned, I had some soup in a mug outside, I didn’t want to stop and sit down otherwise I wouldn’t get going again. John got himself some lunch and then came back outside where we worked until mid afternoon, should sleep well tonight 🤪

In between everything else I was also painting and re writing the advertising chalkboard for the flowers.

Wednesday: Another busy day today, mild again which meant plenty of time outside to get stuff done. John carried on with the removing all the soil from the area we are putting down to lawn and while he was doing that I potted up all the lilac whips I dug up yesterday and I also planted 100 allium bulbs of various types. Some will go out for sale and some will be for the cutting garden. We then moved onto a different area, the brassica cage has been there for about four years I think, it is time to use it for something else before I end up with club root 🙄 I took off all the environmesh and hatched a plan 🤪 the plan involved re using items we already had to create a sweet pea growing area, I have some metal grid sheets that are pretty big and so I wanted one of those attached to the framework of the brassica cage and a narrow raised bed at the bottom for the sweet peas. It should be pretty successful 🤞 and a dedicated area for the sweet peas which have deep roots. I have now almost cleared the area where the rest of the cut flowers will be going and just need to make a plan of what is going where. I will get some pictures once it’s cleared properly and ready to go.

In between all this I was repainting and re writing the advertising chalkboard for the eggs, the boards are all having an overhaul and a refresh, I didn’t get before and after pics of the first board but I have of this second one.

I have also been trying to make hearts from the weeping birch branches, every year in winter it sheds lots of branches, they are very long and wispy, ideal for making things with.

Much better 😁

We popped out to get a bit of shopping once we had eaten dinner, figured it would be quiet in the evening. We got back just in time for a zoom meeting I almost forgot about 🙄 it was a cut flower meeting, very interesting and nice to see others who are doing the same thing.

Thursday: Making the most of John being at home because today is the last day for a while. So after the morning rounds John got straight on outside finishing the sweet pea box and I got on with chalking up the egg board for the roadside, looks pretty good and should just give a nudge reminder to anyone passing that we still sell eggs. Once I had finished I went out to help John, I lined the box, moved a few barrowfulls of dead and decaying leaves (I need to burn these as they are from the pear tree that has scab) Then once John had finished I laid weed membrane down over the rest of the plot to stall the weeds until I can get on it. We measured the plot and overall size is 12ft wide by 30ft long with some small areas already planted with the lilacs and lavender but the rest is ready to plan. It then started to rain 🌧 oh rain stops play says John, nope rain just means play outside stops but plenty to be done inside 🤪 So for the second time in as many weeks John got the hoover out 😝 that is worthy of writing as it doesn’t happen very often, not at home anyway, I am reliably informed by customers that he hoovers in their houses! Hoovering, tidying, wipe round done and time for a sit down, we have the twins later so need a rest in between. I have had to order a new vacuum cleaner, we have two, one is for the boot room and used to do the Rayburn, it’s gets that stale smell so it is the ‘outside hoover’ it has given up the ghost so the ‘indoor’ one moves to outdoor and the new one will be for inside.

I am feeling like my head is fit to burst with everything at the minute especially social media lol. But it’s an extremely useful platform both for getting information out and for receiving information. I just think that at the moment I have too many social media plates in the air 😂 online courses, zoom meetings, online workshops, relevant groups for flowers, Smallholding, self sufficiency, veg growing, gardening in general, personal, then there are the farm pages to run on Facebook, and Instagram and the blog and podcast, I think I need a PA 🤪 Still it keeps me busy right 😝. That and preparing the garden for spring, all of it not just the flower patch, growing seeds, potting up plants and planting bulbs not too mention keeping up with the weeds once they start in earnest.

In the past I have tried to find and trial other more environmentally friendly weed suppressants but I have resorted to the landscape membrane. I tried jute which was ok but only lasted the year which would make it pretty expensive, the cardboard method works really well and is cheap but to cover the area that I need to cover takes a LOT of cardboard so I can only use what I have. The biodegradable membrane is great (expensive) but not permeable and very flimsy so at the moment for large areas it is the landscape membrane I am afraid. Two reasons why this is the best option for me, one, the area is pretty extensive and there is a lot to do. I need to be able to be in control of what gets done and when, which leads me to the second reason and that is the Lupus. I have no idea how the year ahead will go regards the illness, if I am lucky and can keep on an even keel without flares, it will be smooth sailing. If it doesn’t go well I can be incapacitated for weeks sometimes months and then things will get very out of hand, it will stress me out massively and stress is something I need to avoid at all costs because it is a trigger. Sometimes you just have to do what is best for you and your health even if it goes against your ethics which in this case it does but I do need to balance one against the other and until they come up with something amazingly good that’s what I will be using. The good thing is that I use it over and over again but it does shred at the edges if the wind gets at it which is not great, if anyone has any tips on how to stop that I would be interested.

Friday: A frosty morning again but hopefully the sun will thaw everything quite quickly. John has gone off to work today but he did the animals before leaving so I got on with a few household chores. I am hoping to get outside once it warms up a little bit.

Last night I drew out the cutting patch to scale and am giving the layout lots of thought, I think that is the right approach because if I rush in with deciding where things will go chances are I will have forgotten something and have got change it all. The annual flowers are easy enough but the perennial flowers all have different needs and once they are in I don’t want to find I have got it wrong.

Update on the soil blocks and the grow lights: The soil blocks are definitely a winner, I need to get the level of moisture right next time when I use the block because if you have the soil too loose they can crumble a little when the edges dry out but I think that is more user error than design fault. So far I still think they are a brilliant concept, pricking out is a thing of the past with these as exact seedling has its own little bit of soil which you just transplant into the next size block, it’s genius really 🥰 As for the grow lights they have pros and cons, I bought a set with a clip that clip to a table or bench and four arms that have the lights in, the lights are red or blue or a mix of both. The pros are that they do work well, when I change the light colour, the leaf colour of the seedlings change as well. The seedlings also respond to the lights but you do need the lights directly over the seedlings, no point trying to squeeze an extra tray at the end of the light range because the seedlings just lean in that direction. I bought them because the lisianthus are difficult to germinate and grow and I wanted to give them all the help I could. I have seen set ups with trays and trays of seedlings on shelving each with lights attached to the under side of the shelf above. My thoughts are that although we are impatient to get growing, and so use these false environments, nature really does know best and waiting for the light levels to increase is probably better, you will end up with stronger seedlings. I wonder with big set ups, where are they moving all theses seedlings onto once they get big enough to transplant, another set up? You certainly couldn’t move them to outside, not in the UK at any rate, considering we are still weeks away from the last frost date that would be too risky. I imagine people must have a second stage set up that is perhaps under heated cover 🤷‍♀️ I am not sure, maybe I will research it to find out. Overall both the seed blocks and the grow lights are good but for the lights I personally wouldn’t go to a bigger scale not unless I had a good second stage set up to move them too.

John came home mid morning which I wasn’t expecting. I had decided to give the office/craft room a bit of a tidy up but as soon as I finished that I went outside with John to get some work done on the garden. The compost heap needed turning and the compost that was ready needed distributing. I decided that the beds in the big tunnel could do with topping up so that’s where the compost went. I moved two smaller beds that were temporary and put in some pallet collars to make two bigger beds which John also filled. I gave the tunnel a tidy up, put some membrane over the beds. That is the tunnel ready for the season apart from a good wash which needs to wait until the damp weather is finished otherwise the green algae will just come back. I don’t think I have ever had the tunnel ready for action this early in the year. John then carried on with turning this years heap, the more you turn it the quicker it breaks down but it’s hefty work. I tidied up some broken pots and bits ready to go into the skip and then I too sorted the compost bins at the other side of the garden. In the beginning we only had one compost area but I wasted a lot of time talking it all to the other end of the garden each time that I decided to have extra bins within the garden area. I have two big square ones and two darlek type, I emptied out the darleks and put all of that on top of the material in the square ones. Again the more weight on top the quicker it will break down, I quite expected to see some wildlife in there but nope not today. By 1pm it was getting colder and we had both worked pretty hard so it was inside for some soup and a sit down. The soup is from the soup bags I made up at the end of last year, very handy to pop them in the slow cooker with a stock cube in the morning, turn onto high and its ready to blitz and eat at lunchtime. It’s also great because there are veg in there that John wouldn’t normally eat but once blitzed he has no idea 😁

It occurred to me while I was in the poly tunnel that I could offer advice to anyone who is torn between a poly tunnel and a greenhouse. If you can only have one I would say go for a tunnel, they have different uses but a tunnel can be used similar to the greenhouse plus so much more and always go for the biggest one you can afford or site, whichever that is. If it is a greenhouse you really want above all else then by all means get the best you can afford but unless you want it for aesthetics don’t spend the extra on a posh one. It doesn’t work any different and doesn’t make you a better grower, there are better ways to spend the extra money on a greenhouse, such as ventilation, shading, decent staging, irrigation systems, electrics and decent propagators. Also a green house that is well put up will stand the test of time, doesn’t matter how good it looks if the wind rocks it will soon start to leak or worse the glass will crack. Our first poly tunnel has been up for around 10 years and the covering is still fully intact and functional, a lot of that is down to where it is sited, it doesn’t get battered by the wind, which improves the life span. In the tunnels I opted for an overhead irrigation system, which I don’t use, the reason being that too much water is wasted when it is watered from the top. You water areas that don’t need it such as the pathways, watering at soil level is far more cost effective and it is directed straight to the roots of the plants which is where it is needed most.

Another online flower workshop tonight, I am learning lots and loving it 😊

Saturday: Windy lol, that’s today, but mild enough and the sun peeks out now and again. After the usual jobs John asked what needed doing and so I gave him a verbal list, he chose the duck pen 😝 great because that was the dirtiest, muckiest job and I didn’t really want to do it 😂 We had to let the ducks out for a while in order to get it done, John shovelled out dirty, wet, smelly mud and shoved up plenty of duck poop, he then power washed the whole pen. Meanwhile I did the horses water and let them into the front side paddock, they now have three paddocks to roam over. Onto topping up straw in the hens laying areas and then to top up straw in the goose hut, I also found some site fencing (that plastic green stuff) and put that up all along the side of the little paddock that the geese are in. About four years ago Mum, Ken and I planted 950 daffodil bulbs, the first and second year they came up lovely, the third year we had to keep the geese in there due to bird flu and although the daffs came up they were short because the geese trampled all along there hampering growth. The same was likely to happen this year except that I have now fenced it off and hopefully I will get nice tall flowers 🤞 Once I finished that I made the decision to move the ducks back to their original housing, we were going to wait and get the hut moved and a new floor down but the hens in the stable could really do with some fresh air and so they will now move into the pen John has just cleaned out and the ducks will go back to their own home. One of the ducks is not looking very strong so I have ,over her to a stable on her own with food and water to see if she gets any better, she was quite light in weight and muddy I am not sure what has happened to her but if I can try and get her better then I will. I then went on to do some bits in the garden, I cut back all the autumn raspberry canes, potted a few up that I pulled up I also repaired and secured the posts that the canes get tied to as some of them were broken and wobbly. By that time it was lunchtime so I came in for some soup and a cuppa, John also came in for something eat. We had planned on a quick sit down and then carry on but Sam arrived with the children for a couple of hours.

I did another online masterclass about peonies in the afternoon, these type of classes are very good because they are specific and include information about using them as cut flowers rather than just in the garden borders. I have another three classes I think over the next week or so, I am really enjoying them and although I am not a novice gardener I am learning new things all the time 😁

This is the cut flower area it is approx 30 x 12ft 😮 the lilacs I cut back are at the far end and there are some lavenders in there already. The box on the right hand side are for the sweet peas and I need to decide how best to use the rest of the area, not that I am short of plants and seeds to go in there lol.

The weed membrane is to slow down and weed growth until I can get it sorted. This bed has always been a bit of a problem bed, rouge raspberry runners, comfrey and bindweed all have their roots in here, I may have to look at a few raised beds for some of it until they have all died off which could be a year or two 😏 The list of plants and seeds I have is pretty extensive from the favourites like roses, dahlias and peonies to cornflowers, poppies and snapdragons. The beauty of the mix I have is that the bouquets will not be like the ones from the shops, they need to use flowers that will transport well, I can use whatever I want and whatever is looking good at the time of picking.

Sunday: John did a bit outside in the morning and I was indoors making hearts from twigs. Just before lunch I decided I needed a trip to the garden centre to see what is actually out now, of course that result in some spenditure 😂 I said to John, I am investing for this time next year and to my surprise he said ‘good idea’ well then there was no holding me back 😝 I bought some beautiful hellebores, nerine and anemones, I am determined to have naturally blooming flowers this time next year! We were speaking to someone we know who works at the centre and he said that I was onto a good thing, growing and selling flowers and plants, because importing them is about to get a lot harder than it was due to brexit, I hadn’t realised that when I decided to do it but it’s an added bonus I guess. We stopped at the garage on the way back because I wanted to get a cheap bunch of flowers 😮 to give something a try. I was pretty pleased with the result proving that you can even make these look like they are bespoke 😁

Garage flowers and some twigs can still make an artistic display 😁

Have a great week, we are one more week nearer to spring 😁

Posted in Friesland Farm

Cold, wet & lots of research 😁

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 3rd January 2022 (Bank holiday): We have done quite a bit of work over the holidays and there is always plenty more to do but I decided not to do outside work today, I just feel I needed to get some things done inside. John however has been working outside sorting out the duck pen, the duck hut needs a new floor apparently so that will be added to the list 🙄 Meanwhile I am trying to get ahead with the food challenge I set myself and I have a pan of soup ready for lunch, butternut squash, leeks, carrot and a potato as well as chicken stock and black pepper, plenty of veg in that 😁 I also whizzed up a dressing/sauce for my salmon later tonight using flat leaved parsley which I have growing in abundance, parsley, olive oil, salt, dry mustard powder, garlic clove, lemon juice (and because I happen to have a jar) preserved lemon, it looks amazing, tastes delicious and will zing up my salmon fillet no end 🥰 In my quest not to waste anything I have roasted the chestnuts I bought got at Christmas and they will be a great snack over the next couple of days, sprinkled with a little salt normally but I might try some other flavours just to see what it tastes like, I am thinking cinnamon might be nice 🤷‍♀️

I am still doing lots of research and reading on cut flowers and flower farming or floriculture and consequently I am still ordering seeds and bulbs for that 😂 I keep seeing things and thinking ‘oooo they would be nice’ we might end up with that font paddock covered in flowers this year after all. There are so many great social media pages full of ideas and information it is mind blowing and difficult to reign in the over enthusiasm 🤪 I need to remember I will still be growing veg as well as doing all the other jobs I normally do, I did tell John he might have to get his own dinner a lot of the time 😂

Late evening we went to lend a helping hand dispatching some cockerels for someone, I did get to see their very lovely donkeys and goats, it got me thinking about goats again but then I thought that escaped goats and flower farming may not be a match made in heaven 😜

Tuesday: We spent the whole morning sorting out the hens in the stable and the ducks in the pol run. Clean them out put in fresh sawdust, give them cabbages hung up to keep them entertained and put in extra nesting areas as they have started laying more and there is always a fight over the best nesting areas 😂 The roof on the pol run had a hole in it caused by a wayward log that had been thrown for the dog at some point 🙄 John got a new piece and that has now been fixed so that the rain does not get in and cause any more mess than necessary. We have discussed moving the front hen back to their hut, it has an outdoor enclosed run and it has now been cleaned out thoroughly, that would then mean we could divide the other lot up into two stables and they would have more room and more importantly would stay cleaner for longer. The fact that we have to house them for nearly four months pushes up the cost of keeping them, during winter when the egg sales are not that good this is a conflict we are trying to find a resolution to. Do we give up entirely? it’s not cost effective over the winter months at all with the added housing costs, we are unable to advertise spare eggs on social media pages now, in years gone by we would just put a post up and deliver trays of eggs but that is no longer possible so we have to try and get the footfall here, that is difficult when we don’t have anything else to offer, decisions, decisions 😏

Wednesday: It’s early afternoon and I am just sitting down while waiting for the bread to finish baking. John did the animals this morning before going off to do some ‘real’ work, I did all the usual jobs, putting the eggs out as well as the rubbish and recycling etc and then I spent the rest of the morning in the kitchen. I have these oranges to use up and another box arriving today 🤪 I don’t know why I didn’t space them out a bit more but I didn’t and now I have lots of oranges. I scoured the internet for recipes and decided on making an orange drizzle cake and some orange jam, I also prepared an orange and beetroot salad to go with my dinner later. The orange jam I have never tried before and I added some fresh ginger but on tasting I think I could have easily added more, I think cardamom would be a good choice maybe I will try that next time. The jam is all jarred up and I have left it to cool, I made it quite chunky and it will taste different to marmalade as there is no rind in there to create that bitter taste. I am hoping it will be a winner, even with John, at the very least it would make a lovely filling for a Victoria sponge along with some fresh cream in the spring/summer. The orange drizzle cake I probably won’t drizzle, I taste tested it and it is a lovely lightly flavoured sponge, no need for extra calories with that one. I had some beetroot that I pulled up last week and wanted to start using them up, orange and beetroot salad seemed like a great option, I have added some crushed mixed nuts and I will pick some pak Choi from the polytunnel later to go with it, nice and bright, making good use of fruit and veg I have here, something different and nutritious as well, what’s not to like. I am not a fan of salad dressings so I won’t bother but you could make a nice orange salad dressing to go with it if you wanted to.

The weather is much colder today, we had a good frost this morning and the breeze is from the North again so it’s very fresh, it does mean we have some sunshine though which is always a bonus at this time of year. It was tempting to get a bit carried away with the garden with all the mild weather but from experience I know it’s best to wait, do lots of reading and research, do all the other jobs that need doing so you are free to get cracking when the time is right 😁 With that in mind I cleaned out a couple of the kitchen cupboards this morning as well as cooking. To be honest there wasn’t much that needed throwing out only a jar of opened mustard and two almost empty bottles of tomato sauce, I still have a third one in there, we don’t eat it but I do have it for the grandchildren. It was more about knowing what was in the cupboard and giving it a wipe round than anything else. I did find a tin of Jack fruit and need to find out what I do with that 🤔 🤷‍♀️

Thursday, Friday, Saturday: Not much to report from any of those days 😂 wet and cold so apart from the usual I didn’t do anything else outside. I did go out and pot up some dwarf iris (reticulata) bulbs and intended to do the sweet peas but by the time I had done the bulbs my fingers were blue and freezing, it was 1c in the greenhouse so I came back indoors. I have been doing a fair bit of reading up and video watching about flower farming though so I haven’t wasted time at all. Oh yes and John has been suffering with toothache since Wednesday, he went to the dentist Thursday who charged him well for an X-ray, said they couldn’t see anything but sent him home with antibiotics just in case 🤷‍♀️ he started taking them, the pain did no subside, a swelling formed and to date it hasn’t got any better but it also hasn’t got any worse.

Sunday: Despite having toothache and being on two hourly painkillers as well as the antibiotics, John agreed to take me to a local nursery to get some foliage plants. It was frosty this morning but the sun soon thawed everything and it turned out to be quite a nice winters day. I got three plants from there but it is a nursery rather than a garden centre and so we called in at another centre on the way home and had coffee and cake plus a couple of sale bargains 😁 We then called in to my brothers which was also on the way back, intended to stop for a quick coffee and ended up being there a few hours. Mum and Ken were also there when we got there and as it was sunny we decided to don our wellies/boots and search for Roman pottery in the ploughed field in front of his house (it belongs to the farm that their house belongs to so permission is granted) It didn’t take long to find a good bowlful of pottery, the site is being monitored by experts, geophysics have been over it, archaeologists have looked at findings there and a local chap has permission to metal detect there. They have found plenty of Roman coins and pottery and even had a full report written up on the findings so it is exciting to find pieces that haven’t been touched by anyone else for thousands of years 🥰 We would have stayed longer but we had to return and let the dogs out that had been in since mid morning. I had intended to get some garden work done as it was not a bad day but that will wait for another day. Seems like it was a day of intentions that never quite got fulfilled, sometimes a change is as good as a rest.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Rain, struggling & two new friends for Ted 🥰

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 26th July 2021: It is noticeably cooler today though we still have had no rain and the sun is out which means I have been watering this morning. We have seen only a drizzle of all the rain that was forecast, I was hoping we would get a lot more but as yet nothing so from here until we do I am going to have to start watering the veg beds in order to keep things alive and producing. I don’t want to, the aim of self sufficiency they way I do it is to be able to grow food without too much intervention but needs must. To be honest I have got away much more lightly this year than last so I can’t complain.

I had a jumble of jobs to get sorted in my head this morning, picking, potting on, watering, cutting back. I have achieved some but not all, I have picked tomatoes, cucumber, chillies, runner beans, French beans and young ying yang beans as well as some peas and beetroot. We will have some of the beans and peas with our dinner tonight along with potatoes I dug up the other day and I will pull some carrots later. I potted on a couple of plants that I had out for sale, bought them in potted them on and have left them to soak, I put some others out instead, foxgloves, verbena, geums and rudbeckia. I have a pile of onions to get sorted still, I have done half of them, and I have garlic to peel and chop for the freezer in one form or another, I will also freeze some whole cloves, the reason being I had to pull them early and so they are not going to store as they are. It is 11am and I already feel tired enough that I could have a nap 😂 dilemma, do I keep going half heartedly or do I stop and nap and then get on later 🤷‍♀️

Spotted this bumble bee on a sunflower this morning 🥰 🐝

Booked a Dmard blood test for later in the week, it’s due but I also feel as I am getting quite tired there may be a touch of inflammation going on 🙄

Peeled all the garlic cloves, two thirds I made into paste and froze flat then marked out sections on the bag (like noughts and crosses) so I can just break a bit off when needed, the other third is in the dehydrator and that will become powder. I chopped some onions to go in there too, half will be crispy onion and half will be powered. I still have some onions that I think will keep for a couple of weeks and so they are in a basket in the store cupboard. Did a bit of tidying away and some hoovering also a bit of un bountiful paperwork, ie I didn’t get anywhere with the results I was after 🙄 just a lot of chasing around. Time for a sit down before John comes home and I have to get the dinner on. Oh I did pick some more fresh flowers for my kitchen 🥰 Still got soo much to get sorted but rest first I think.

Tuesday: Today I have accepted that I am struggling, I am so tired it is unreal and my legs feel heavy, my feet hurt and I am incredibly grumpy about everything, all signs that something isn’t quite right 🙄 Hopefully it’s just a blip, I have taken some ibrufen along with my meds this morning and I will make an anti inflammatory smoothie of orange carrot and turmeric later, also make sure that what I eat is plain and fresh so that my digestive system doesn’t have to work too hard in order to leave the energy for my body to use for healing instead, that’s the plan lol. So unless the ibrufen kicks in I will not be doing much today except resting, luckily I have blood tests on Thursday so should be able to pick anything up quite early on although the lupus is like an iceberg by the time you can see the top, underneath has grown massively.

I went out and did the necessary it proper struggling now 😕 fed the Guineas and torts plus cleaned them all out and got new hay and straw for them and the light Sussex and cleaned Teds pen. Then picked some fat hen for the Sussex who don’t come out until later when Ted goes away otherwise Ted and the cockerel fight 🙄 After that I wanted to get some washing on the line. I took the rotary down when it was Johns birthday but the bottom broke and everything since I have been using the airer but when I want to dry bigger things that’s not practical. So I tried getting it back up as best as possible, it took a lot of effort to lump hammer what was left into the ground, then it wouldn’t go up which took me four or five attempts then once I had the washing on there it started to fall over 🤬 ffs I wedged a piece of wood behind it but that has just about finished me off and I could easily have a sleep. Washing lines have been the bane of my life, anyone else? Just me probably, never had a rotary that actually stayed upright and when we moved to one place it had those nice concreted posts at each end, fabulous I though till John decided they were in the way and dug them up and then it was back to rotary 😭 Although we have plenty of area I can’t actually find a good spot for a retractable one that isn’t under trees!

I did find some energy eventually so I went out and had a go at scything some of the grass in the front drive, came in and had a good look at technique on you tube plus how to peen the blade as well as sharpen it.

We finally had some much needed rain although by the time I realised it was raining my washing had got wet and to add to that the washing line had fallen over with all the washing on it 🤬 I have mow ordered a new screw in ground spike hopefully that will work 🙄

I spent the afternoon and evening sorting yet more stuff out for the holiday, I have had real trouble with the booking number 😂 not being able to log in, trying umpteen times, finally getting on and u able to print out the tickets, finally managed to do that and we are nearly good to go, so much extra paperwork this year all designed for contactless check in I think. Fed the cats and dogs at 7.30 and finally got something to eat before sitting down, no pressure to water this evening thank goodness because I don’t think I could manage it.

Wednesday: I have Josh and Flo today so whizzed round and did all the necessary things before spending some quality time with them. As we had rain in the day I didn’t need to water anything except the uncover stuff which was a blessing. Had a disaster though as the UV gazebo was flipped by the wind and landed on the pea canes making a hole in the gazebo and ripping up the peas 🤬 n the positive side John managed to get my washing line up securely in a place that is mor easy for me to get the washing in when it’s very hot.

Thursday: Blood tests this morning, good job as I feel totally exhausted at times, I can’t really explain it to anyone who does not have total fatigue but if you do you will understand. Firstly I feel incredibly tired, I can feel my words slurring, my eyes are really heavy and I guess it’s like you have been given sleeping tablets (wouldn’t really know as never had them but that’s what I am guessing) and then for I have a nap I have a real job waking up, it’s quite surreal to be honest and a little bit scary. I remember when I was having a really bad flare, I couldn’t rouse myself from sleeping just kept falling back to sleep and remember thinking ‘is this how you die, just drift off to sleep and that’s it’ 🙄 not that bad this time at the moment but definitely something is not right.

Having said that I did the jobs I needed to get done before going for the tests and then for a birthday treat Shelley, Josh and Flo took me to Buscot tea rooms and then we walked along to the weir and the lock, lovely area and never been there before but really wanted to go, glad we did. When I got back I literally sat down and then went to sleep 😴 for over an hour.

Friday: It’s my birthday 🥳 it’s been raining most of the day and I have been here by myself most of the day but I have done a few things on top of the usual jobs. After feeding my job lot I picked a few things, cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapeños, then I met a chap from a local farm museum who has two females turkeys to rehome and hopefully they will be coming here on Sunday 😁 Indoors then to make a super smoothie which was raw beetroot, a pear, some blueberries, some honey and then oat milk, blend and drink, full of goodness 🥰 I cooked some jalapeños and chopped onion in water until soft (but not mushy) then blended them and added avocado oil to make a chilli sauce for sausages later on. Then I still have plenty of stuff in the big freezer to get used up and so a whole load of things went into a pan to make a batch of soup, swede, sweetcorn, baby potatoes, beetroot, onions, leeks and some spinach together with veg stock and black pepper.

Shelley, Josh and Flo came round in the afternoon with a birthday cake for me and stayed until later in the evening, John came home early from work then everyone came round at 6ish, the weather was on off rain, then very windy, but luckily it settled a bit by the time we lit the fire pit, oh yes and the cat stole one of the raw sausages waiting to go in the pan 😂

I had cooked the soup earlier intending to freeze it but the weather was so shockingly bad in the evening that everyone had soup before their sausages 😂 the jalapeño sauce went down really well and so did the s’mores 🥰 lovely evening round the fire on a cold July evening 🤷‍♀️

Saturday: Early start as Charlie and Macca were coming round to pick us up and take us out for breakfast as a birthday present, I had no idea where we were going. We arrived in Oxford just after 8.30 and had breakfast at the Breakfast Club, delish French toast with pecans and and banana for me, traditional English for John, pancakes for Charlie and Macca, the coffee was lovely (I really appreciate a decent tasting coffee) fresh orange was exactly that and also delicious, once we had stuffed our faces we came home 🥰 When we got back we had a quick cuppa and then cut the front drive grass with the mower, apart from the areas I scythed it was long and difficult that was added to by the weather, one minute the sun was out, next it was a shower and this carried on until we had finished. Needs another tidy once it dries, whenever that might be 🙄

It carried on with some torrential downpours all afternoon so most other jobs apart from the necessary were just abandoned, ridiculous weather 🤪

Sunday: More showers in and around grey skies and occasional peeks of sunshine. Mostly I spent the first couple of hours picking and then sorting veg out one way or another. John did the morning rounds and then some weeding and I am delighted to tell you that Ted now has some lady friends 🥰 we have rehomed two female turkeys from Cogges Manor Farm and although it’s early days and they are giving each other a wide berth 😂 we hope they will all get on together. It’s lovely for Ted to finally have some of his own kind 😁

Tedalena and Tedaliscious 😂

Very tired, grumpy and disillusioned today 😕 and the constant rain showers don’t help because I can’t really get on with anything, never mind maybe a nap will help 🤪

Have a great week, and if you are reading this on my personal Facebook page please note that from next week it will only be available on the Friesland Farm Facebook page or you can subscribe for free on WordPress which will deliver it to your email inbox 😁

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sooo hot 🥵 a stuck hedgehog & more ash die back 😞

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th July 2021: And just like that it’s Monday again but not any old Monday, today is Freedom day 🤷‍♀️ That’s what they have named it anyhow 🙄 we are not free of the virus and we won’t be for a very long time yet but I guess it is time to get on with life as best we can under the circumstances. Who would have guessed this time a couple of years ago we would have had such a restriction on our liberties 😮 My personal opinion is that at some point we have to get on with life, we can’t keep locking down but I would say we still have to be very careful. I do know of double vaccinated people who have since caught Covid, their symptoms were not as bad as they may have been back in the beginning but they have had symptoms that are flu like and still lost the sense of taste. Proceed with caution is the advice we should have had.

Enough of that 😂 It is another hot day, set to be a scorcher of a week and you know what that means for me, yep I will mostly be found indoors! I was up early this morning and by 9.30 I had done four hours of work and come inside to do some more, I will probably nap mid afternoon as I will be out till dark once it cools down enough, if it does 😜 No picking today I am going to wait a couple of days until there is plenty to pick, so that left watering and weeding which is what I did as well as feeding the usual bunch of inmates. John got up after me but did the birds before going off to work.

Once I came in I decided it was going to be way too hot most of the week to put another coat of paint on the ceiling so I have abandoned that and started putting the bits and pieces back where they belong, at least the kitchen won’t be upside down any more which will make me feel calmer about things lol.

Apart from putting the kitchen bits back up and sorting dinner for later I didn’t do much else until much later, had an afternoon nap obvs 😂

Once we had dinner and done all the late afternoon/evening jobs, I went out to get some watering done. Although it is very hot because I have watered the tunnels and greenhouse everyday without fail, they are doing pretty well. The veg in the beds are also doing better than I had expected, all that rain at the beginning of the season and plenty of cover on the ground (including weeds) is keeping things going. I am looking at changing the beds a bit for next year and I think I will order some bulk mushroom compost at the end of the year, that seems to help keep moisture locked in. While I am at it I will incorporate some bio char as well, that’s the plan anyway, as always things don’t always go according to plan but I can see how far I get with it.

Tuesday: Another scorcher in store today 🙄 up with the alarm at 5am, lovely and cool at that time of the morning. I watered last night so this morning it was picking to concentrate on, I picked French beans and the first lot of runner beans, beetroot, carrots and from one of the small raise beds a good haul of potatoes, also a few blueberries. Fed the torts and Guineas, sorted out the boot room and gave it a Hoover, cleaned out the litter trays that the kittens have now started to use and then made a coffee. I could then hear Patch barking a ‘come and see this bark’ I checked to make sure he wasn’t locked in anywhere as he didn’t come when I called him at first. I went out the back and he ran off towards the paddock so I followed him knowing that something was amiss, a hedgehog was stuck firmly in the stock fencing, back up to get some gloves and wire cutters and back down to release the hog and make the hole in the fence ‘fat hedgehog friendly’ 😜 Back up to drink my coffee and sort out this major I go haul of goodies. The problem with the hot weather is that I don’t really want to eat carrots, beans and potatoes but they need picking and pulling so I am going to have to prepare them for freezing or storing, I also have onions and garlic (which can’t be stored due to the leaf miner) to get started on. I did want to dehydrate some onion rings but it will be a bit warm to have that on at the minute, I reckon the sun is warm enough to sun dry tomatoes here for once!

Oo I have done a thing lol, like I do, on a whim, I have listed our small back paddock as a Wildpoint camping site (tent only)l Well there are plenty of people staying in the country for holidays this year so might as well utilise some of our area and share the wonderful sunsets with them 🥰

I’m crying, I’m not sad, I’ve been chopping the onions 😂

Popped out this evening for a therapy treatment then stopped off in the village at the pond as Shelley, Martin and the kids were there with some friends and then back home to water the tunnels and the greenhouse. It is a bit cooler this evening which is nice and after watering I sat in the garden, a hedgehog ran across the lawn and there were two baby hogs in the paddock, they looked like large conker casings 😂 I have filled up a dish of water for them and put it on the lawn, probably struggling to find water in this heat wave. I hope it breaks soon, the struggle is real trying to keep everything going just at the time when fruits and veg are forming 🙄

Wednesday: Guess what, yep it is bloody hot again today 😂 It was nice and cool around 5am though and there was a slight dew on the plants which is great. I got started on some garden work almost straight away, only picked peas today and then cut back the tops that were not producing yet to see if I can stimulate a flush growth from them. Then it was into the fruit cage to cut back any dead steam from the summer raspberries, plenty of bindweed to pull up and water the fruit that is in pots. I suddenly realised how dumb I was 🤪 I have an oblong galvanised water tank on one side of the cage and it is on the opposite side to everything that is in pots and needs water most, derr, what was I thinking, well I clearly wasn’t thinking that’s for sure so I need to remedy that. The tank gets filled up with water from the bigger rain storage tanks and then it also fills naturally from any rainfall so there is usually plenty in there I just have to fill up the watering can and take it to the plants. It would be a whole lot easier if the plants were nearer 😂 The rest of the day, once I had finished outside, I have done next to nothing 🙄😬🥴 saving my energy for later tonight and the watering sesh.

Thursday: Same heat if not hotter certainly in the house anyway. I spent the early morning checking the veg garden and watering where necessary but I didn’t do any picking I decided to leave it another day and pick a lot at once rather than bits and pieces. The development of some veg is slow due to the heat and lack of moisture, rain forecast for the weekend which should wake it all up a bit. I spent a large part of the day inside as always but I was busy. We have a holiday booked and I was getting the paperwork printed sorted, emailing enquires etc, that seemed to take hours what with one thing and another. We are going on a weeks cruise to nowhere 😂 seriously we get on the ship in Southampton and it sails around the south coast and the French coast, no stops and then comes back, but that’s fine, we just need to get away. Good food and drink, relaxing and reading is just about all I will be doing and I can’t wait 🥰 Everyone boarding needs proof of both vaccines (and the nhs site was down 😜) we will all have to be tested at the terminal (courtesy of P & O) we need Covid travel insurance, health declaration forms, passports (even though we are not getting off) car parking booked, tickets and labels and umpteen forms to fill in lol, didn’t get all of it done for one reason or another but nearly there. We weighed up all the pros and cons, the ship is not filling to capacity (50%) we don’t have to go to the inside venues if we don’t want to, there are plenty of opportunities to eat outside, protocols are all in place and so because we feel we need to get on with life a little bit, we booked up. If I am honest I did think it might have all calmed down a lot more by now, I didn’t reckon on the football being a point of super spreading 🥴 Still, we are going and I still feel despite everything that it will be ok 🤞hopefully not famous last words!

In the evening it was supposed to be the usual jobs after dinner, watering, but we sat down and John out a film on so that was that as I got interested in it lol. I did go out around 9.30 just before the light faded and watered the greenhouse, it was so much cooler outside than indoors so we sat out there for a good while before ending the day.

Friday: It feels cooler today more like what we are used to in the summer. I got up at 5 and started watering, I splashed a bit round the front beds as well, they are flagging in this heat now. Then onto the veg garden and watering the tunnels before launching into picking. Cucumber, courgettes, tomatoes, runner beans, French beans, aubergines, peppers, chillies and some blueberries, raspberries and Logan berries, not many but enough for us. Once that was done and I had done the horses water and let out the ducks it was indoors to prep the stuff I had picked. Some went out for sale, Shelley and Charlie both wanted a few items and the rest I podded, chopped and peeled either for dinner tonight or for the freezer. It is the twins 2nd birthday today and we will be popping over there later this afternoon and so I have put dinner in the slow cooker, that way it is either ready before we go or I can leave it until we get back depending on how hungry John is 😁

Just typing this up I have now been working for almost six hours and it’s only 11 am, sometimes I wonder why I feel so tired by midday 😂

I had a delivery, it’s a birthday present for me from Sam and family and it arrived early as they will be away. The delivery man said, as is etiquette for the British, ‘isn’t it a lovely day’ to which I replied ‘yes it is but I’m glad it is a bit cooler than it has been’. Mistake really, normally I would just say, yes it’s lovely but for some reason this other sentence came out of my mouth today 🤷‍♀️ We shouldn’t complain about the weather, we don’t get it often enough’ he said (nicely I will add) I could tell he liked his sunshine, tanned, shorts on, t shirt etc, for some inexplicable reason I felt the need to defend my sentence 😆 So I tried to explain about UV and my skin, ‘oh right’ he said as he waved and walked away 🤣 Two things spring to mind here, he doesn’t understand it and nor do millions of people probably, and also I feel like I am ‘that person’ who has a hundred different allergies when I start to explain why it’s a problem 😕 I don’t want to be that person, I am not that person but I am becoming more disillusioned by the lack of awareness and understanding lately 🙄 Especially when it has been as hot as the last few days, when things get back to normal (eventually) there will be so many things I would love to do but can’t because it’s out in the blaring sunshine 🤦‍♀️

Saturday: John cleaned and tided the back area which always needs doing every few weeks due it being a dumping ground as we pass through. I did a bit of picking and then we went off to meet Shelley and the children at a local event and then had a coffee in town. Writing this on Sunday I can’t actually remember what else we did but we did something 😂

Sunday: Still haven’t had any rain, there was loads forecast but it has missed us almost entirely, we had a short burst of rain but that is it so far which is not what I need, really need some decent downfall. After doing indoor stuff I went up the back and burnt the rubbish and I used the scythe to cut down stinging nettles, found a clutch of eggs which we will save to give the dogs and cats. I also discovered that one of the ash trees that I thought would be fine for a couple of years, has got disease right at the bottom and half the trunk is gone. We need to get it down soon before it comes down of its own accord. Meanwhile John cleaned out the front hens and then pulled up some of the bigger weeds from the side driveway in readiness for some type 1 to be delivered. In the afternoon we went off to get me a birthday present, chuffed with my new fire pit that has cooking facilities 🥰 later in the afternoon I made some steak and onions on there, converted John finally to campfire cooking as he said it tasted soooo good 😁 Popped out to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa and then when we got back I pulled some of the dead stuff in the front beds and gave it a good watering, finished around 9.30pm, very tired now.